Reconstructions of human evolution are prone to simple, overly-tidy scenarios. Our ancestors, for example, stood on two legs to look over tall grass, or began to speak because, well, they finally had something…

An Inupiat Eskimo family from Alaska in 1929, whose ancestors would have crossed Beringia thousands of years previously.
Edward CurtisFebruary 28, 2014

The theory that the Americas were populated by humans crossing from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge was first proposed as far back as 1590, and has been generally accepted since the 1930s. But genetic…

For days when Lucozade and a Mars bar just won’t cut it.
barclakjJanuary 7, 2014

During the warm periods between ice ages stretching from 500,000 to 200,000 years ago, the southern parts of Britain were occupied by a species of ancient human, Homo heidelbergensis. These hunter-gatherers…

Symbolic behaviour like burial brings us and Neanderthals of the past closer.
Gareth Fuller/PADecember 20, 2013

Ever since the discovery of the well preserved, nearly complete, 50,000-year-old Neanderthal skeleton in a pit dug in a cave in La Chapelle-aux-Saints, southwest France, it has been long debated as to…

It should not be a surprise that East Africa was a hotbed of evolution, because over the last five million years everything about the landscape has changed. The extraordinary forces of plate tectonics…

Cut from the sea bed this 20m long core contains 100,000 years of climate history.
Ian HallMay 24, 2013

Responding to a crisis often brings out the best in people. Certainly it has in the past, when sudden changes in climate during the Middle Stone Age sparked off surges of cultural evolution and innovation…

Could we have found the first artist’s studio in human history? We may well have. We all recognise the material signs of wealth. Fast cars, large yachts and sparkling bling all tell us who has more. Crowns…

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Chief Investigator and Co-Leader of Education and Engagement Program ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, and Director, Palaeontology, Geobiology and Earth Archives Research Centre, UNSW Australia